


uncover your eyes

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Out of Character, messy self indulgent AU that doesn't make sense, they're kinda rivals?, viktuuri is very vaguely hinted at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21981925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He locked himself in the first stall and began to fall apart. Muffled, awful sobs echoed through the room. Yuuri was supposed to be on top of the world, and he was crying himself ill.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Yuri Plisetsky, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 78





	uncover your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Minor (offscreen) character death.
> 
> Summary: Yuuri is the several-time world champion. He retires after tragedy during the 2015 Grand Prix Final, and Viktor wins everything for a season.
> 
> (I don't intend to continue this any further, but wanted to publish the little seed I had of a full story. Apologies for inaccuracies. This is certainly out of character.)
> 
> *Recently removed this fic from Anonymous Fic collection

_After the 2015 Sochi Grand Prix Final, Katsuki Yuuri vanishes. A train crash outside of Hasetsu. It becomes a headlining sports story that four-time world champion and three-time Grand Prix gold-medalist Yuuri Katsuki skated a nearly record-breaking free skate mere hours after some gossip magazine dug up the devastation._

“Family of three, the Katsukis and their daughter, are the only casualties.”

_Yuuri devoted his entire being to the ice. And it seems he paid the ultimate price. A freakish, chilly, terrifying part of him took over and he skated his free program as well as any other day. Every flourish and every outward emotion was carefully curated, semi-conscious. The moment he stepped off the ice, reality crashed back down. Hard, unforgiving, and lonely-- so, so lonely. Denial’s hopeful respite didn’t last long and he doesn’t remember anything about the kiss and cry. He does remember wrenching his skates off his feet and sprinting across the building to the only deserted bathroom, past swarming press and his concerned coach. He locked himself in the first stall and began to fall apart. Muffled, awful sobs echoed through the room. Yuuri was supposed to be on top of the world, and he was crying himself ill._

  
  
  


Yuuri drifts around St. Petersburg for more than a month before flying back to Tokyo on a whim and falling into his best approximation of obscurity. In Japan, it’s hard, but hiding in plain sight works well enough. He becomes passable enough at disappearing. The figure skating community eventually settles. Online forums lose hope, give up, move on, remain idle or rarely active. A janitor for a rundown Fukagawa rink doesn’t recognize the man who mumbles his way into a copy of the rink keys and skates through long nights, disappearing before sunrise. Yuri Plisetsky does, however, recognize the way that the lonely figure glides deep on his edges, holding them easy and steady, before launching into a triple axel as casually as a chasé.

-+-

Yuri, between practicing, practicing, and practicing finds himself close on the trail of the living-legend-turned-disappearing-act Katsuki. It takes Yuri months to pin down the entire city of Tokyo and another few dozen hours to approximate the Koto ward. When he does, he boards the earliest reasonably-priced Tokyo-bound plane and forgets to so much as leave Yakov a cordial parting note. He’ll be back in a week, with Katsuki in tow.

Yuri stumbles into four local rinks and yells his way (in English and Russian and the three Japanese words he knows) out of all of them before he finds himself sitting in the highest stands of a dark hockey club with caging instead of windows, watching one of, if not the best men’s single figure skaters in history lose himself to the ice. The sight is a beautiful as it is frightening. Yuri swears he remains impassive and collective while he witnesses the most devastating, devastated art the sport of figure skating has to offer. And even if he was, crying, the pure anguish radiating off Katsuki is disgusting and captivating enough to bring anyone to tears. Even the Ice Tiger of Russia. (Yuri isn’t experiencing any emotion here— he has work to do.)

Yuri almost makes it through three hours huddled in the freezing rink without being caught. But stupid Katsuki just has to fall hard on a quad lutz attempt. A concerned yell rips its way out of Yuri’s mouth before he can stop it. Katsuki sits up, looks up, and stares back.

_Thank fuck the idiot’s alright._

Yuri clambers down to rink level. The first thing he notices about Katsuki’s face from behind the chafed plexiglass is that his eyes looks pushed back in the shadow of his eyebrows. Katsuki looks like he hasn’t slept since the last World Championships. Yuri almost feels bad about what he has to say. (Almost.)

“Come back to us. You belong on the ice. Competing. Not… here!”

Yuuri stares right through him. “This is… ice, no?”

“I need to beat you in my senior debut. There can be only be one _Yuri_ and I need to beat you while you’re competing.”

“Let’s get breakfast.” Katsuki’s voice sounds forced on his tongue. Has this man spoken to anyone relevant since December? Yuri’s seen enough of Katsuki’s interviews to know what his English sounds like. What his voice is supposed to sound like. Not this. Yuri still says nothing and follows close behind when Katsuki leads him back to the locker rooms.

“I’m never skating like that again.” The words cut through the echoing hush of the empty rink.

“Bullshit,” Yuri insists. “You just attempted a quad lutz alone.”

“Over-rotated triple,” Katsuki amends.

“Liar. It was totally around. If you still have your quads, you can still compete.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Well you certainly haven’t pigged out since you left. I thought you got fat over the off season.”

Yuri expects Katsuki to at least flinch at the insensitive jab about his weight. He doesn’t. Yuri’s heard the comments. Years ago, Katsuki ping-ponged between competition fit and off-season chub. When he stopped, and stayed as slight as ever for summer ice shows, Yuri had been one of the few concerned parties, not that he voiced such to a single soul.

“There’s a nice cafe around the corner,” is all Katsuki says.

Yuri lets Katsuki lead him out the door and down the street. Yuri pointedly says nothing about how the loser wears a hygienic mask, thick glasses, and a fringe over his eyes. Fucker must be exceptionally desperate to go unrecognized. Yuri feels the smallest swell of pride at being able to track the bastard anyway.

The cafe’s food is good. Yuri devours a pastry, because fuck it, Lila isn’t here breathing down his neck about _empty calories_. Katsuki nibbles at some soft and puffy bread thing and sips tea. They sit in the back of the cafe, Katsuki facing away from the window.

Katsuki tries his best to stuff the lapse in meaningful conversation with laughably bad casual banter. Pitying the old man, Yuri nods along. By the time the morning business people hurry in for coffee, Yuri has learned that Katsuki loves dogs, loves some Japanese dish called _katsudon,_ hasn’t spoken to his coach or friends since his vanishing, and takes anxiety medication daily. Yuri also suspects that Katsuki's an even screwier than he lets on. Yuri doesn’t pry and follows Katsuki out of the cafe and down a maze of narrow streets in a washed out residential neighborhood before they both stop at a squat grey apartment building. Yuri counts two whole posters of Katsuki’s smooth, lifeless face smirking from billboards when they pass a commercial district.

Katsuki’s apartment is small. A single room with a single large window and a mattress shoved in a corner. There's a thin mattress on the floor, boxes stacked against the corner of the room, and a kitchenette that looks unused.

Katsuki really is _pathetic_.

Yuri says as much.

It’s common enough knowledge that some big American newspaper did a financial report on top athletes and concluded that Yuuri made _at least_ $700,000 USD a year (after skating and travel expenses). In response to Yuri’s barely restrained incredulity, Katsuki mumbles something about how having a lot of money makes him feel horrible and that he’d given away everything he doesn’t need. Yuri concludes that his and Katsuki’s definitions of _need_ vary greatly and leaves it at that. Plus, isn’t Tokyo an expensive city?

_Disgusting_. Yuri pronounces vaguely at the shithole apartment before dropping his backpack carelessly in the middle of the floor.

“You’re staying here?” Katsuki looks more resigned than surprised.

Yuri pulls a thin blanket out of the large backpack. “Got a problem?”

“Not really.”

Yuri spends the rest of the day on his phone. When Yuri finally picks of his coach’s fifth call, Yakov’s anger rates a 9.04 out of 10. So long as “aneurysm range”-- 9.8, (Mila’s words), isn’t reached, Yuri doesn’t have to fear for his life.

Katsuki collapses into his lame bed-like thing and falls asleep in his practice clothes.

_Bastard forgot to take a shower._

At exactly 21:00, Yuri drags them both back to the rink. Katsuki conjures a key to the place from his jacket pocket. Yuri doesn’t question it.

“Did you bring your boots?”

“Obviously fucking not,” Yuri says as he eyes the cubbies behind the desk lined with falling-apart rental boots.

Katsuki sighs. “Those blades are terrible. They’re rusted, and you’d break your ankle on a waltz jump in those boots.”

Grumbling, Yuri leans on the rink wall, “I have eyes. Those things aren’t getting anywhere near my feet.” 

“You’re rinkmates with Viktor Nikiforov, right?” Katsuki asks.

“Yeah. He sucks. Why?”

Katsuki’s sardonic smirk is the first smile he’s made since Yuri found him yesterday.

“Please watch this.”

So Yuri does.

Katsuki skates Viktor’s free program from last season like _loss_ . The man alone on the ice looks like loss itself. Somehow, the loneliness and grief is multiplied tenfold in Katsuki’s version. It’s a complete do-over of “Stay Close to Me” and anyone with eyes would be able to see that it’s _better_. Yuri makes him do it again after only getting the last thirty seconds on camera. Amazingly, Katsuki doesn’t even noticing him recording. The second time, Yuuri adds the jumps. Yuri just has to immortalize this goddamn motherfucking unfair gem of a skate. Yuri almost misses Katsuki landing the upgraded quad lutz-triple loop combination.

“You upgraded the jumps? Viktor’s the only other skater who has the quad flip down and you just replace a triple combination with a quad combination that _nobody’s ever done befor_ e. It wouldn’t even boost the base value to add the loop there. You’re gonna fucking kill yourself, dumbass!”

Yuri hopes Katsuki doesn’t recognize how much he knows his skating career. It’s embarrassing.

“It hasn’t worked yet.” Is all Katsuki says in response.

_I haven’t been able to off my sorry ass yet._ Is what Yuri hears loud and clear. He freezes. Katsuki looks scared of the words out of his own mouth.

“I’m posting this on the internet.” Yuri announces abruptly, holding up his phone with the paused video on screen.

Katsuki keeps staring listlessly, still looking tremendously lost.

“And you’re gonna come back to skating and talk to your friends and stop this nonsense. Maybe go to a shrink or some shit. Because clearly your pity party isn’t working. And the world needs to see you again.”

Katsuki just nods once.

* * *

**KATSUKI YUURI Skates Viktor Nikiforov’s** **_“Aria: Stammi Vicino (Stay Close to Me)”_ ** **FS**

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ICE_TIGER_RUS | 98,348 subscribers

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Add a public comment…

**Sk8ter Girl**

Did he do that program TWICE IN A FUCKING ROW??. THAT MAN IS SUPERHUMAN

**Nikiforova**

+Sk8ter Girl No jumps the first time, though

**Sk8ter Girl**

+Nikiforova Footwork and the rest are hard, too, especially when you’re running a program.

**Lillian R.**

4:07 _THAT QUAD LUTZ-TRIPLE LOOP COMBO THO. KATSUKI MAKING HISTORY AGAIN!!_

**МашаѲѲѲѲ**

Go to 2:31 to for the start of the full program

**pewter in our hearts**

You all: Katsuki’s old and probably just retired and wants to stay away from media after the disaster last year

Katsuki Yuuri, coachless: lol, I could set a new world record if I wanted, I’m just giving Nikiforov a chance

**Tiger Fairy**

Lol so does this mean Katsuki has the most quads of everyone right now. I know Yura has toeloop and Salchow and he’s working on his lutz and Viktor has toe, Sal and flip. Christophe has his lutz and toe. Otabek has lutz and toe, too I think.

**Kevin**

+Tiger Fairy Otabek did Salchow (underrotated) at Skate Canada last season

**Let him skate**

\+ Tiger Fairy JJ has 4T, 4S, 4Lz, 4F

Read more…

* * *

Somewhere across the supercontinent, at Moscow’s most successful singles skating club, Viktor Nikiforov, four-time World silver medalist, five-time Grand Prix Final medalist (one-time gold) and Olympic champion, feels a funny little firecracker of hope explode in his chest.

* * *

**Katsuki Return**

Mariko29: Isn’t he, like 27 now/ I’m surprised he’s held up this long.

QuadAxelss: This is all just speculation. The video could be older.

YurAngela: why would Yuri post a video of his enemy?

DaryaKana: has he formally announced he’s back

YuuriStan09: is nobody going to talk about how he disappeared after the media shitstorm? We all have to pray that they treat him with the respect he deserves this time if he returns

Histxry-maker: watch him break a world record and land the world’s first quad-quad combo at age 27

**Author's Note:**

> Figure skating jumps: In the singles events, there are 6 jumps. In order of points value and apparent difficulty they are the toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip, Lutz, Axel. (The Axel is a special case because of forward takeoff and an extra half rotation.)
> 
> Based on the way that jump takeoffs and landings work, only certain jumps can be done in combination. A toe loop or loop can be done after any of the other jump, or even one after the other (toe-toe or loop-loop). The most valuable triple+triple jump combination is the triple lutz-triple loop. The most valuable quad+triple jump combination being jumped right now in mens is the quad lutz-triple loop. The added value of a triple loop instead of toe loop is minimal and may even lower the base value of all jumps in a program, considering jump layout rules, but it seemed like an interesting combination.


End file.
